Mobile Devices Drive 66 Percent Of Email Opens — Report

According to Movable Ink’s Q1 2014 US Consumer Device Preference Report email opens continue to migrate away from the desktop, which now represents a minority of all email opens. In addition, the tablet share of email opens continues to grow.

Movable Ink said that 66 percent of emails were opened on either a smartphone (47.2 percent) or tablet (18.5 percent) in Q1. That’s up slightly from the 65 percent in Q4. By contrast PC email opens were down to 34 percent.

Source: Movable Ink (Q1 2014)

Most mobile email opens happened on iOS devices. In fact there were more iPhone-driven email opens (38 percent) than on the PC as a whole (34 percent).

According to Movable Ink, iPhones and iPads represented just over half of all email opens (54.5 percent) in Q1. Android devices combined for 10.8 percent of all opens, which was down vs. Q4.

Apple device owners generally spent more time viewing emails as well.

Finally Movable Ink reported that smartphone email opens peak in the “early morning,” (before working hours) whereas tablet email usage is concentrated in the evening, between 8 pm and 11 pm. However smartphone usage is dominant throughout the day.

The implications of this report and others that show similar trends are obvious and immediate. Make email and associated “landing pages” mobile friendly. Remarkably I still receive emails on my iPhone that click-through to PC pages that indicate I’m missing the Flash plug-in.

About The Author

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog, Screenwerk, about connecting the dots between digital media and real-world consumer behavior. He is also VP of Strategy and Insights for the Local Search Association. Follow him on Twitter or find him at Google+.